AVS HD 709 - Blu-ray & MP4 Calibration - Page 92

The latest information doesn't line up with my previous thoughts. I suppose color decoding could be different for your electronics between the two formats (PAL & Blu-ray), yet generally I would expect similar blue and white patterns to measure without much difference when each was set with the blue-mode. I'm not familiar with PAL, but with US DVD and Blu-ray comparisons incorrect color decoding generally shows up as differences in red and green. Without seeing measurements I cannot really say if color decoding issues might even be a possibility. The only other thing I can think of is if the gray pattern didn't match the color patterns (same percentage), then that could make for inconsistent measurements, but again I'm just making wild guesses without seeing the numbers.

Usually there is no clearly right or wrong backlight setting. Generally you just have to set the backlight to personal preference. Most often the setting controls the light output for the TV. Higher settings tend to make the entire picture (black to white) brighter. Higher settings will probably make white brighter, but high settings might also cause black to become a lighter gray. Setting the backlight is often a compromise between getting bright whites and dark blacks.

The thread at http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...4#post20045034 gets into some backlight or iris related topics. My general opinion is to try to maximize white-level (contrast or picture control), try to minimize black-level (brightness control), and then set backlight based on room lighting. Room lighting can affect perception, so for example it might be reasonable to use different backlight levels for day or nighttime settings.

A gray card and a way to light it may not be any cheaper than some of the entry-level colorimeters, like the Eye-one LT or Spyder products. Measurements can give a bit more objective information. Of course not everyone will consider measurements a reasonable cost/benefit deal, because there may not be a huge difference in contrast settings between patterns or measurements.


Gray in common commercial content may not reach the highest levels used in the APL Clipping and White Clipping patterns. Using the levels from those patterns just tends towards a conservative white-level (contrast) setting. An alternate way of looking at tinting would be to use the gray ramp in the Misc. Patterns, and it may be more difficult to spot tinting around reference white (black dots) in the ramp. If you want more objective information then a way to take measurements may be reasonable, but if you're not seeing tinting near reference white (black dots) on the ramp you're probably fine for a majority of commercial content.

Since you say "self extract" I'll assume you get this error from the .exe download. Judging from what limited information there was for the error message on a quick search, I would guess that it's an incomplete download. Download Note B includes the expected download sizes for the HDMV and AVCHD versions. If the download size matches, another option would be to download the .7z, and it also requires the 7-zip software to extract.

Most TVs are rather bright at their default settings. On a quick comparison a brighter display usually wins out, so you may want to try watching a dimmer display for a few minutes before deciding it's comparatively no good. The procedure at http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...2#post20066562 can be used with some TVs to find a minimum backlight setting for the current room lighting. You can always go higher with backlight after you begin to notice flashing at 19 on the APL Clipping pattern, but going higher generally tends to make black more gray as the image gets brighter.

If you prefer a certain backlight for some reason, another option would be to adjust room lighting. A dim room usually makes a less-bright TV more reasonable, because generally the TV will seem brighter as the room gets darker. If you prefer a higher backlight that causes black to get lighter, more light in the room may help mask a grayish black.

Another option would be using a dynamic backlight, if the display has that feature. It will tend to make bright scenes brighter and/or dark scenes darker than what the TV might display with a fixed backlight setting. My TV has this sort of feature, but I find it distracting how my TV changes brightness when using the setting. I'm sure many people use the feature and generally don't notice the changing brightness, or else they simply prefer the darker blacks and brighter whites compared to using fixed lighting.

The list is from my own testing and replies to the thread. There are simply too many models at this time to try to have a complete list. Thankfully playback from writable media has improved since the first-generation players, and generally most recent players of the same brand tend to have similar playback.


Some players will not play Blu-ray from DVD media, so there is also a modified version with the AVCHD information.


The AVCHD download here does not include the extra empty Blu-ray folders, like BDJO, that multiAVCHD typically includes. This difference means that playback may not match with multiAVCHD, but I believe it only applies to players that don't actually intend to support AVCHD playback.


Encore was used for the main authoring, and a chapters problem with the Convergence section was corrected with BDedit.

That may be possible. I didn't include the folders because the prior commercial AVCHD authoring program hadn't included the folders. The manual seems to include AVCHD, so it goes against my prior statement. Off hand I don't remember any players that would not play with the extra folders. I suppose the folders could be added, and then just hope there aren't any such examples.

It's authored in Adobe Encore. There's a re-author function in multiAVCHD. Mainly it's just used here to add the AVCHD information.

There are some empty folders that appear in the Blu-ray (HDMV) download that are not on the current AVCHD version. I would probably just match whatever the default multiAVCHD output marked AVCHD includes. I'm not on my main computer and cannot say if multiAVCHD just includes the items under BDMV or also CERTIFICATE.

I don't know if firmware ever changed things, or if further details were documented, but http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=144674 seems to suggest that adding the extra Blu-ray directories to the AVCHD might not work for certain players.